Zerhouni for a day?

Ever find yourself thinking, 'boy, if I ran the NIH, things would be different?' Well, two bloggers named Geoff Davis and Peter Fiske want to give you that chance -- virtually. Yesterday, at the linkurl:North Carolina Science Blogging Conference;http://wiki.blogtogether.org/blogtogether/ , Davis announced 'Zerhouni for a Day,' a linkurl:feature;http://blog.phds.org/2007/1/19/challenge on their blog soliciting comments on what you would do if you were charge of the NIH and NSF.
The trends in NIH

By Ivan Oransky | January 21, 2007

Ever find yourself thinking, 'boy, if I ran the NIH, things would be different?' Well, two bloggers named Geoff Davis and Peter Fiske want to give you that chance -- virtually. Yesterday, at the linkurl:North Carolina Science Blogging Conference;http://wiki.blogtogether.org/blogtogether/ , Davis announced 'Zerhouni for a Day,' a linkurl:feature;http://blog.phds.org/2007/1/19/challenge on their blog soliciting comments on what you would do if you were charge of the NIH and NSF.
The trends in NIH funding will be no surprise to readers of The Scientist. Neither, however, will the fact that despite the complaints about funding levels, the number of PhDs and postdocs has risen. That means that the flattening of the NIH budget isn't the only thing responsible for declining grant approval rates, as we linkurl:reported in September;https://www.the-scientist.com/2006/9/1/42/1/ .
The conference was, to my knowledge, the first time so many science bloggers had been in a room together. There were about 170 people there, from middle school teachers to tenured professors of biology. Check out the linkurl:program;http://wiki.blogtogether.org/blogtogether/show/Conference+Program for more, and find out what people are saying about the conference linkurl:here;http://wiki.blogtogether.org/blogtogether/show/Conference+Links+and+Liveblogging .

Comments

I would start by giving postdocs the salary they deserve which should be upwards of at least 60-70k. As postdocs we should be embarassed that we're accepting our lowly salaries. I'm not sure what profession has more schooling than us, yet we, as a the greater postdoc community, give the impression that we're satisfied with our paychecks. It seems we can pay a ridiculous price for a an apparatus or an enzyme but we fall exceedingly short when it comes to potdoc's salaries. A lack of solidarity and excessive compliance has led us to where we are.